Arthur Elliott

Arthur Elliott (1870, New York City – 20 November 1938, Cape Town), was an American born South African photographer who recorded the architecture and daily life of the Cape. Elliott took over 10,000 photographs of Cape Dutch architecture, creating an unrivalled pictorial record of early 20th century buildings at the Cape.

Life

Elliott was born in New York City in 1870 to Scottish parents. He was orphaned at 12 years old and worked in a series of odd jobs. A job as a ships crew member took him to England and India before arriving in South Africa at the age of 30.

Elliott died in Cape Town on November 30, 1938.

Work

Anglo-Boer war prompted Elliott to started taking photographs. The war caused him to move to Cape Town as a war refugee in 1900 where he took to photography as a fulltime profession and passion. He acquired a quarter-plate (3.25 × 4.25 inches) camera from a friend and had his first success selling selling photographs of Boer prisoners of war to British soldiers in the Cape. He had a number of major exhibitions in Cape Town; in 1910, 1913 (with a catalogue compiled by Theal and F.K. Kendall's article on Cape architecture), in 1926 (with an introduction by Sir George Cory, the historian), another in 1930, arranged by W.R. Morrison. His final exhibition, in 1938, was titled "The Cape, Quant and Beautiful” and included a catalogue edited by Victor de Kockin. These gave him widespread recognition and enabled him to eke out a living through the selling of prints. During his life he took more than 11,000 photographs of the Cape, the most comprehensive collection of images of life at the Cape during that period ever collected. Before his death, Elliott offered his collection of photographs to the local government for £5000; the offer was declined. After his death, his collection was acquired by the Government and presented to the Cape Archives.

Gallery of work